


It's A Lonely Winter

by salamandererg



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Imaginary Friend, Not Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-04
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 23:23:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7381648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salamandererg/pseuds/salamandererg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve made Bucky up when he was a child so there would always be someone to play with and comfort him when he got sick.  Even when Steve got older, he never outgrew Bucky—through every painful winter in poverty and sickness, every back alley beating, his mother’s funeral, and his life after Erskine’s serum, he always had someone by his side.<br/>Then he woke up in the future, alone for the first time.</p>
<p>AU where Bucky existed only as a figment of Steve’s imagination.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's A Lonely Winter

**Part I**

The other children could run faster.

They could laugh loudly and uninhibited, circle all the bases, and sneak a piece of candy without getting caught.  Steve could barely walk without getting wheezy, or laugh without rattling his chest, and he wouldn’t ever steal, but there was hardly any money left over for food, let alone sweets, in his house.

Steve’s mother worked hard to provide for her son, but long shifts at the hospital guaranteed she would be gone most of the day and too tired at the end of it to entertain him.  Steve didn’t want to bother her, his mother’s health could be as precarious as his own at times, nor did he want to be fussed over.  But he was lonely, painfully so.

Steve wiped his nose with a handkerchief for what felt like the fiftieth time that day, he knew he was coming down with a cold, but stubbornly insisted it was just dust.  He sat watching the other kids play and enjoy the emerging spring weather, which was just this side of cold for Steve to be bundled up in a patched sweater while the others wore short sleeves.  Most of the younger kids stayed close to their mothers or were digging through the dirt for bugs while their older siblings played tag.  Dolores, who lived in his apartment building with her mother and grandmother, was showing off her blue dress to her friends, saying she had gotten it from one of the new department stores—which Steve knew wasn’t true because he had been in the room when Dolores’ mom had gotten the fabric from his mother.  But he understood why Dolores wanted to lie to her friends, both of whom were in clean, fashionable dresses, just to be on the same level as them.

If Steve had friends they wouldn’t care about that stuff.  They wouldn’t care if Steve was poor, that his dad wasn’t around, or if he and his mother went to Catholic mass.  Maybe they wouldn’t even care that Steve drew too much, or was always sick, or couldn’t run too far or fast without wheezing, or couldn’t go out to play in the cold.  Steve’s friends would stick up for him when he got into fights, they’d care if the other guy beat him when he was already down, and they’d jump in.  Steve’s friends, if Steve _had_ friends, would be the best, because they’d care about the people who couldn’t fight back.

Right now, though, Steve didn’t have any friends.  Maybe next year, his mom had said, maybe in school, maybe in church, maybe—

“Hey Stevie,” Darren Heck said snidely, kicking Steve’s sketchbook out of his hands and into the mud, “Whatcha workin’ on?”

Darren Heck was two years younger than Steve, but five inches taller, twenty pounds heavier, and meaner than a child of ten should be.  Steve always thought he could take him and always got his head pushed into the ground.

“Let off of ‘im, Darren, this is boring,” Darren’s friend said from behind him.

Darren drove his elbow into Steve’s back so hard he saw stars and let out a sob.  Darren smirked, “Not until he says it.”

Steve shook his head, smearing mud all over his hair.  Steve tried to wiggle out from underneath the other boy, throwing as much weight around as he could, but Darren didn’t even budge.

Darren’s friend groaned in frustration, “Just say it, kid, he’s not gonna stop till ya do.”

Steve glared, “I'm not going to.  You don’t give in to bullies.”

“Christ, just get off of him, the hell you doin’ pickin’ on little kids anyway, Darren?  He’s tiny, I’m afraid he’s gonna suffocate.”

Darren miraculously got off of Steve that time, rolling his eyes while giving one more shove to Steve’s back, “You’re such a whiner, Jim.  You just wanna go make kissy-faces at Susan Delancey.”

Darren stepped on Steve’s sketchbook as he walked away, laughing as his friend pulled him to the other side of the park without a glance back at Steve.

Right now, Steve didn’t have any friends.  He didn’t see any worth having.

“Hey, Steve,” Bucky said kindly, as Steve pushed himself off the ground and took several deep, shuddering breaths, trying to hold in his tears.  Bucky rubbed his back soothingly, up and down in small circles, and it was almost comforting enough that Steve could imagine that he really felt a hand there.  That there was another person as warm and solid as he was right beside him, leaning against him.

Steve didn’t have any _real_ friends, just Bucky.  Bucky was all he’d had for a long time.

\--

Steve first thought up Bucky in the middle of a particularly harsh winter, cuddled up on the living room floor with all the blankets they owned.  He had spent most of the day alone as his mother worked; promising her that he felt much better and that he wouldn’t get out of bed except for the necessities.  Sarah Rogers had been hesitant, but knew she either worked or they both starved.  Even at seven, Steve had understood that.  Just last week, the couple downstairs had given their baby to the church because they couldn’t afford to feed him.

Steve’s mother was curled up on her bed, exhausted from staying up with Steve all night as he vomited and then working a full day at the hospital.  Steve crept into her room and peeked his head in, his mother’s hair was still up in a bun and her skin was grey and sweaty, every so often she would give a little shiver.  Steve pulled the blankets from around his shoulders and covered his mother up, giving her a kiss of the forehead like she had done for him so many times, before quietly closing the bedroom door.

Steve went back to the family room, almost used to the little shivers that always seemed to go through his body no matter what the weather was like outside.  Every once in a while his fingers would start to tremble or he would break out in goosebumps, and his mother would smile, saying that was just his body letting him know he was still alive.

Despite still recovering from his sickness, Steve felt wired and not at all interested in going back to bed.  He tidied up the living room and even put the clean laundry away, the ones that went in the drawers he could reach anyway.  Steve was very proud of himself for being able to help around the apartment until he coughed himself to tears while sweeping the floor.  Once he had gotten his breath back, he peeked in on his mother to make sure he hadn’t disturbed her.

She was still sleeping, thankfully, a small lump under the quilt and blankets.  Her face was grey, but she wasn’t wheezing when she inhaled and the sweat on her brow had dried.  Steve closed the door as quietly as he could and resolved to actually get some rest like his mom had requested.

He laid on the couch for ten minutes before becoming restless again.

It was times like these, happy though he was with his mother as company and often frustrated by the behavior of other kids, that he wished for a friend.

His friend would have to be his own age, and a boy too—there was nothing wrong with girls, but the ones Steve knew were more interested in pretending to play house rather than pretending to explore the jungle.  Someone stronger, who could do everything Steve’s body couldn’t, but he had to be kind as well.  Steve couldn’t imagine ever being friends with someone who wasn’t kind.  He’d have to be adventurous, clever, loyal, and…

Yes, exactly like that.

“Do you want to build a fort?” The boy said excitedly, “We could pretend we’re on an African safari or somethin’.  Or climbing a mountain ain’t nobody been up before.”

Steve smiled back brilliantly, “Yes.”

Sarah Rogers found her son the next morning sleeping on the floor in a fort made from couch cushions and pillows that had been propped up against the table.  There was a scattering of kitchen utensils around him put together to resemble a campfire and a bowl was perched on his head, even as he slept.  She could bite her lip no longer, and Steve woke up to the most genuinely cheerful laugh he had ever heard from his mother.

\--

Bucky, and Steve wasn’t quite sure who had named him that, whether it had been him or just a name plucked out of thin air, was perfect.  He could go with Steve wherever they wanted, stay up as late as Steve could keep his eyes open, and had no end of ideas for games the two could play together.  Steve felt accepted by Bucky, he didn’t have to make excuses or apologize for sitting down to breathe for a few minutes, or when he couldn’t get out of bed for days in a row.

Bucky would sit there with him and tell stories that Steve had given up figuring out if they had come from him, or if Bucky was the one actually making them up.

It made it hard to forget that Bucky wasn’t real, so Steve stopped trying to remember.

Steve grew and was surprised to find that Bucky grew with him, actually outgrowing him by the time Steve turned 15.  Bucky had turned from a scrawny kid for Steve to play with into a broadening teenager that towered over Steve.  It wasn’t a huge vote of confidence that even Steve’s imaginary friend was growing faster than him too.  Steve had even tried to think Bucky into shrinking down, but Bucky had just laughed and called him a punk.

When Steve was younger, Bucky had always been easy to imagine in front of him as a real person, his features clear as day.  Now that he was older, he found that Bucky was harder to see and was more like a presence in the back of his mind.  Which made it easier to talk to him, even if Steve had to catch himself from speaking out loud or dodge people’s weird looks when he smiled and laughed for no reason.  He felt isolated from his peers, undesirable to girls, and on a completely different planet than most of the boys.  His mother worried about him, Steve knew that, but he always made sure to put on a happy face for her when she got home and show her a new drawing he had made.  It didn’t erase her worry, but it did make her smile.

When his mother passed away, Steve saw Bucky as clear as day for the first time since he was a teenager.  He appeared as Steve was walking into his empty apartment, looking older in his black suit, like he’d been at the funeral too, like he was grieving his own mother.  Steve had sat down on the couch and cried as Bucky held him.

After that, Bucky no longer just lived in Steve’s head.

\--

Bucky followed him everywhere, and that meant into every recruitment office in New York.  Steve, for the first time, wished that he were Bucky.  Bucky was strong and smart, he would be accepted for sure, the Army would have to be an idiot to turn him down.  The Army would have to be an idiot to ever accept Steve.

**4F**.  **4F**.  **4F**.  **4F**.

Steve crumpled up his form and threw it at the trash, sighing heavily when he missed and had to go pick it up again.

“I don’t understand why you even want to go to war, Stevie.  People are dyin’ over there,” Bucky said, appearing in a sharp uniform that he’d been wearing ever since Steve started applying for service.  Bucky had asked for him to imagine different clothes, had pleaded, but Steve hadn’t been able to manage it.  “There’s lots of ways to help.”

“I’m not going to go around collecting scraps with my little red wagon and overalls.”

Bucky was quiet for a second, “I just want you to be safe.  You're my best friend.”

“I know,” Steve looked down, “But there are men over there laying their life on the line, why should I do any less than them?”

“You’re not,” Bucky sighed, “You're not less than anyone because you aren’t fighting.  Is that how you’ve been justifying your existence, by how many times you get your backside handed to you behind the cinema?  Do you think that all these people are less?” Bucky motioned to the fairgrounds, the crowds, the blinking lights and buzzers going off, the children laughing. “Jesus, Steve, these people are just living.  You should go live too, find a pretty girl and take her to see that piece of junk flying car.”

Steve looked, he tried to at least, but his eyes were always drawn back to the recruitment office, “Just one more, Bucky, just one…and then I’ll stop.  Promise.”

“Yeah right, ‘just one’,” Bucky mocked unhappily, but followed Steve all the same.

\--

When Steve steered the plane into the ocean, he had Peggy in his ear and Bucky by his side.  His friend was calm, silent, with only the hint of rising panic in his eyes.  He stared unblinkingly at Steve, who stared back, even while promising Peggy a dance.

Steve wondered if Bucky was afraid of dying, or if he resented Steve for his self-sacrifice.  Bucky had always followed Steve in life, it was fitting that he should follow him in death as well.  Or maybe, Steve had given him enough thought and enough love that Bucky wouldn’t die, he’d just go back to, go back to…

“Hey, Bucky?” Steve asked thickly, knowing instinctively that he was seconds from the water, “Where’d you come from?”

Bucky finally broke their stare with a small, sad smile and huffed out a laugh, “What, are you an idiot or something?”

The impact knocked Steve around so much that he saw stars and once he was able to safely open his eyes against the initial rush of water, he found that Bucky was blinking out of existence for a couple of seconds at a time, which was more terrifying than the inevitable death Steve was facing.

“Bucky!” He shouted in his mind, but the other man had gone again, this time without returning.  Steve searched for Bucky in his mind, looking for any hint of his presence, searching for the friend he had never been without since he was seven.  It was in that moment, when he couldn’t feel Bucky inside him, that he realized he was selfish.  That he was prepared to die, but he didn’t want to be alone.

Water was still rushing in through the windshield, the plane was sinking fast, lights that had already been going haywire were fizzling out, Bucky was fading, Peggy was becoming just an echo in his ear, and soon, Steve would be gone.  There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that he had made the right choice, though; when it came down to it, Steve would readily sacrifice himself for thousands of people, hundreds, dozens… maybe even just two.

There was no more air in the plane now, it was sinking slowly, almost gliding peacefully to the bottom, everything was dark blue and quiet.  Steve had been holding his breath since the impact, he could hold it for another hour before his lungs started to strain.  It was so cold though, cold enough that Steve was already having trouble moving his arms and legs, his eyes were slipping closed, and all he could think of to do was lie down.

Steve blinked, looking to his left when he felt a weak squeeze around his hand, but nothing was there.  Another blink and Bucky was back, gently sweeping his thumb across Steve’s forehead like he used to do when the other was sick.

Steve turned his head and smiled, ecstatic that Bucky hadn’t left him after all, “Hey, Buck—”

“Shh,” Bucky said, pressing down harder on Steve’s forehead and squeezing his shoulder, “It’s time to let go, ya punk.”

Steve let himself be pushed and smiled softly, “Jerk.”

The last thing Steve remembered was Bucky’s smile and Peggy’s voice.  The last thing Steve _chose_ to remember was Bucky’s smile and Peggy’s voice.

It wasn’t like he could just forget the half hour of holding his breath and the cold that had paralyzed his body, the panic that he had to fight off every time he looked to his left and didn’t see Bucky.  It was too much and eventually he just had to stop.

\--

Steve woke up, warm, dry, and alone.

\--

End Part I

**Author's Note:**

> First things first, thank you for reading and con-crit is appreciated, as always. Secondly, I have to admit that this might turn out to be a train wreck, a 'You bit off more than you could chew' train wreck. Please bear with me while I work on part two.
> 
> Thank you again.


End file.
